The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

1: A Rock Slide

[OP: "O Sleeper"--The Oh Hellos--Yay! new EP.]

Day 29 of quest:

It had been one month for Team Zoe, as they were calling themselves now, since they'd left Leaf or Sand Village respectively, and now they were just starting their ascent up the last real mountain before Stone Village territory started.

Shine, their female leader, had nicknamed the last mountain they climbed Mount Injury, after a mountain in a story--and because people had gotten hurt or nearly hurt so many times while they went over it. [The story is Hind's Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard. An excellent read.]

So, needless to say, no one was looking forward to this one, though it was slightly smaller at least.

The team had started out feeling like a ragtag band of ninja who had nothing better to do with their time and were thrown together despite massive differences in thier villages, backgrounds, and views of life.

One month in, it still felt like that to Tenten, who was not the most flexible person in the world, but at least they were a little more used to it. They still bickered over stupid things often throughout the day and got crabby when they got tired, but by now no one expected it to be easy at all times or to agree at all times. That in itself was a sharp contrast to the first few days of the trip.

Their last stop, Mist Village, had gone really well. They'd even saved an island of people, something that Naruto kept complaining he'd missed out on and begging Gaara and Shine not to leave him out of the next adventure.

Gaara said he wouldn't, but Shine would never promise anything, so Naruto was a little put out.

Sakura had not been that sorry to miss the dangerous part, deep down, but she said she hoped they wouldn't need to worry about any other big problems from this point forward--but with Naruto in the group, it didn't seem that likely.

Some of the others had expected Sakura to go home after Mist. After all, there was plenty of work for medics in Leaf Village. But Sakura didn't seem inclined to go, at least not unless her teammates went with her.

And Naruto was in no hurry to go back to studying, and Sasuke seemed, for some reasons, bent on sticking out this mission for once. He'd never tell Sakura why--he didn't even bother to acknowledge the question--so she was baffled.

Sai, whom she didn't really care about the opinion of anyway, seemed perfectly content and even to be enjoying himself as much as he enjoyed anything.

He was fast friends with Camie, and kind of with her boyfriend Bakugo, already. And the others seemed to like him too.

Ino and Shikamaru from Team 10 were still going strong and hoped that their third teammate would even join them soon.

Team Taka, as they used to be called, all seemed fine with staying with the team for now. And Hinata and Hanabi, the newest addition to the group, were happy to be anywhere they didn't have to worry about fighting people for a while.

Neji had been in the team but had decided to stay behind in Mist Village with his new friends, for personal reasons. The leaders had let him make the decision, which had caused some confusion to their more authority-fearing followers.

Gaara was not the controlling type, and Shine and Wally, the duo leaders for the hero team and co-leaders with Gaara for the ninja, never seemed to feel it was their right to demand people stay with them, which puzzled the others a lot also.

Other than that, there was just the two Todoroki brothers, Shoto and Dabi (not his real name), and Shoto's girlfriend Momo, who might have been the only person in the team who everyone else in it all liked, at least a little bit, and had proved herself to be the kindest, most attentive and most dexterous fighter out of the heroes and even out of the ninjas. If this was the show Survivor, she'd never have been voted off.